Tasty Startups: Munchery Sears Off ‘The What’s For Dinner?’ Blues

Tasty Startups: Munchery

The Craving it Satisfies

Phone to fork dining well done (meaning: just as you’d hope, not cooked until bloodless).

Why it has a winning recipe

Munchery is a food delivery service that raises the bar about as high as you’d dare stoke your grill flame before burning your eyebrows off. It’s mouth-watering goodness.

Munchery delivers same-day orders of meals that are ready to eat after just a few minutes in either the microwave or oven. Meals are healthy, using fresh ingredients, and prepared by top notch chefs. Menus change daily. Packaging is eco-friendly (biodegradable and microwavable). Food is delicious and, yes, it gets better – affordable.

Hardly a secret at this point, Munchery has already expanded from San Francisco to Seattle. It’s raised over $30 million in capital, with Sherpa Ventures leading the latest round. The company has also earned backing from the likes of Roy Choi and Jon Favreau, as well as enlisted chefs of Rubicon caliber to crank out dinners.

They have all of their pots simmering at the right temps. They moved from using the stoves of local chefs in off hours to relying on their own staff and kitchen. Their slick web & mobile ordering system lets customers tailor meals to match dietary needs, even adjust delivery time and location when things aren’t running as planned (pretty much always, right?)

Most impressively though, they seem to truly understand the challenges we all face trying to eat well. We struggle to find the time and energy to cook healthy meals at home. We can’t afford to eat out every night – have families and schedules that make dining out impossible. When we need to eat quickly, we resort to less nutritious and flavorful options. The list goes on.

Munchery addresses not one but all of these pain points. Meals use local, organic ingredients as much as possible. They take minimal effort to prepare. At the same time, they’re neither frozen nor your typical fast food cholesterol-rocketing affair. Mobile ordering is super convenient.

A quick look at the Munchery photo stream on Facebook will make you drool. I clicked through a few photos until I came across what looked like a pot pie with morels and had to look away, starving with envy. Have a closer look at what’s stewing under their lid at munchery.com.

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Keith Liles is a freelance writer who loves travel, music, wine, hiking, poetry, and just about everything. He practices saying "yes" to life vigorously, rehearsing for the phone call when he's asked to tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Follow Keith on Twitter @KPLiles.